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Stories

  • Article

Eugenics and the welfare state

Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.

  • Article

The girl with no name

When a now anonymous teenager sold her tooth for transplant, she couldn’t have predicted that she’d end up at the heart of a troubling story about 18th-century beauty ideals.

  • Article

Surviving fatness

It took time for LMM to discover that being fat and poor are mutually exclusive. Here she describes resisting fatphobia by being visible and leaning in to the stereotype.

  • Article

How to be poor and happy

Money, security, self-sufficiency and charitable giving have long been linked to happiness. But what if you’re working class?

All stories (61)

Images

  • Men of opposing social classes in a game of boules; illustrating the faculty of weight and resistance in phrenology. Steel engraving by A. Portier, 1847, after H. Bruyères.
  • An estate worker who is sweeping up autumn leaves takes off his hat in deference to a little boy who is heir to the estate. Process print after G.H. Boughton, 1873.
  • Two working-class men wearing top hats and moustaches, imitating the fashions of the upper classes, rejoice in their new-found equality in fashion. Wood engraving after John Leech, 1854.
  • A mat-making couple. Gouache drawing.
  • Page 159: two images of women in their traditional costume. Watercolour drawing.
  • A hotel managed by noblemen. Wood engraving after J. Leech.
  • A Patanee couple. Gouache drawing.
  • A king holding court. Ink drawing.
  • A woman tells her friend how she pretended to be poor and got free accommodation at the Hospital Lariboisière for 40 days. Colour photomechanical reproduction of a lithograph by N. Dorville, c. 1901.
  • Jewelry maker. Gouache drawing.
All images (153)

Catalogue

All works (938)